Friday, November 30, 2007

You see them often at the night markets. These snake oil peddlers who give such convincing presentations for their magic elixirs that can cure almost any ailment humans can get. ...for just $10 per bottle you get a cure for any kind of skin problem and if you have stomach upset, you just need drink a spoonful and save that trip to the doctor. They have been around for decades speaking publicly to large crowds about their non-FDA approved miracle cures. With healthcare cost escalating, I notice their sales have increased as people seek alternatives to rising cost of conventional healthcare....the crowds attending their public outdoor presentations are huge..I'm so shock the SDP demanding the right to speak in public without a permit. Who do these useless members of our society think they are? They certainly don't deserve this right because they will use it to poison our minds. It is dangerous...there is no guarantee that reading the Straits Times diligently for 20 days will fix the damage. They certainly don't deserve the same rights as credit card peddlers, floor cleaner salesmen and snake oil peddlers. I'm so glad the police has acted so objectively for the public good to haul them to court for speaking in public. I'm sure there will be great harm inflicted on our society if they are allowed to do this without prosecution. If you drink that magic non-FDA approved potion from the snake oil peddler you will save the trip to the clinic, that is why he is allowed to peddle his medicine for so many years - he is a trusted useful member of our society. These SDP guys they are here to peddle poison - demanding greater transparency from our esteemed govt, demanding greater freedom of speech & democracy, urging citizen to stand up for their rights...all the useless ideas they imported from overseas - we just cannot have that.-----------http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/314213/1/.htmlSDP pair again contest charges of speaking in public without a permitBy Teo Xuanwei, TODAY Posted: 28 November 2007 1127 hrs

Photos1 of 1> ">Chee Soon Juan (C)

SINGAPORE: Answering charges of speaking in public without a permit for the third time, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan and party supporter Yap Keng Ho on Tuesday accused the police of "selective enforcement". The duo, who represented themselves in court, claimed that they and about nine other SDP members did not flout the rules by promoting their party newspaper in front of Causeway Point on April 8 last year. Comparing themselves to hawkers who peddle their wares in public without permits but are not prosecuted, they questioned if the action against them was "politically motivated". Cross-examining the first witness, Mr Loh Zhen Hong, a former police officer who had reported the incident, Yap tried to show there was "unfairness in enforcing the law between the ruling party and the opposition". He used examples of banks holding roadshows to promote their credit cards and people who sell their products with loudhailers to argue that the party's activities on that day were "nothing out of the ordinary". Yap also grilled Mr Loh, who was off-duty when he spotted the SDP's activities, on whether he would have gone to the police if he had seen members of the People's Action Party or Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew making speeches. Mr Loh said that he would have done the same thing in those instances. District Judge Jasvender Kaur cut off Yap several times to remind him that his cross-examination should focus on proving that Mr Loh "had ill motivations to report to the police". After the court was shown the video clip of the SDP's activities that day, Yap contended that the police, by filming the proceedings, had already assumed the party had committed an offence. The court also allowed the footage to be released to the duo to help them prepare their defence. The hearing continues Wednesday and is scheduled to last till next Monday. If convicted, the pair face a maximum fine of S$10,000 each. - TODAY/ym

48 comments:

In the past when PAP was wary strong opponents, it simply put them in detention without trial.

In 1963, an election year, LKY "admnistered the coup de grace by imprisoning all OPPOSITION LEADERS of any potential. In the wee hours of February 2nd, the government launched the aptly named Operation Cold Store and MORE THAN A HUNDRED MEN found themselves suddenly in jail." (from the book Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore)

Such are the unsung real great heros who got jailed by PAP for so many years and managed only to maintain their sanity through "Political conviction, intellectual integrity and moral conscience" in the words of Dr Lim Hock Siew.

This is how the political power of PAP was built - undemocratically, tyrannically.

Nowadays, such detention without trial for Dr Chee - who looks threatening enough to PAP because of his broad grasp of the political situation and his explicit put down of PAP in his books even before his troubles - would tar PAP's international reputation. Neither would house arrest for him look good for PAP.

So PAP uses another method : to bar him from standing for election through bankruptcy, forbid him to travel abroad and ban him from public protest. And not to forget also the hollowing out his CEC through a defamation suit that sent his CEC members over to another party.

Local politics past and present is but a subset of politics of the big powers.

WWII Japan thought it could unseat the Britian colonial power and take its place. It was not to be. The Japanese did not expect such a powerful weapon as the A-bomb; their generals laughed at the Americans when they were warned about such a weapon.

Anyway, even though the Allies won the day, the British power had waned. But it was not about to give up everything even though it looked outwardly that way through its withdrawal from former colonies.

A story among WWII veterans goes like this : the communists in Malaya fought with the British against the Japanese army. Here's one such story.. I think this is a historical fact.

One war veteran told me that the British had promised the communists during WWII that they would be a legitimate political force should the war be won. The British broke that promise after the war and sought to finish the communists off, the latter being a threat to its global reach and power. This they did through the new local leaders like Tunku and LKY.

Thus whether true communists or innocent politicians who happened to be pose a serious challenge to PAP were roped in and jailed indefinitely.

By being the pawns of the British, the new local political leaders of former British colonies were already assured a place in history through the support of the British government which still called the shots.

For that matter when Singapore was part of Malaysia it was none other than a former British PM that saved LKY from being arrested by the Tunku when the latter made that suggestion to the British PM.

PAP which potrays itself as independent of foreign powers is in fact but closely allied with the big powers. First it was the British, then the US which used to be critical of PAP for being undemocratic but not anymore. Who knows in near future, it will ally with another big power.

Politically challenging PAP is thus not just a matter of local politics I am afraid.

Sounds like the reasoning that the courts might use is that in the case of the peddlars, they have to wait for the people to come to them to force their goods on them or, if they do call to the crowd, they just give the highlights like "tired of aching backs? do you suffer from aching backs?" and people come to them.

In the case of the political opponents, people are calling out their ideas and 'wares' to the public without asking them if they want to hear it. The political opposition forces their ideas on people.

The equivalent to the political leaders forcing their ideas on the public without their consent is like the peddlars forcing people to pay for their products. After all, for every second that the person listens to the ideas of the politicians is a second that those people are not spending money on the economy to show that the PAP are great for helping boost the economy by the single digit percent per quarter year, or it is a second that the people are not at work helping to make money so that they can pay for the high prices of services that most countries take as a gov't responsibility. After all, like they say in NA "Time is money".

So, you see, sounds like the PAP is not enforcing the law of speaking in public without a licence but more in the way of enforcing the law of forceful peddling of wares.